Will you uncover your hair?” they ask when they hear I’m divorcing. I am taken aback each time; it’s such a private matter. The morning after my wedding, I tied on a scarf and walked to synagogue. My mother didn’t do it, nor did hers, but my father’s mother, who lived next door when I was . . . . Continue Reading »
Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks has composed a message to the Christian community replete with intellectual light and heartfelt warmth, and it is a great honor to be asked to respond to him. I would like to focus on three topics: creative minorities, universalism, and Christianity in a post-Constantinian . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s a rainy day here in the Carolina foothills, and I have been out in the driveway washing the dog. What possesses a person to wash a dog in the rain? Well, I think “possesses” is the key word here, because having just finished washing a dog in the rain, I can’t really . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend John Podhoretz wrote to point out that, in posting on the Moose Menorah, I’d forgotten a key moment in the history of Jews and Moose—Woody Allen on the how the Moose went to a party and . . . . Continue Reading »
A Moose Menorah:20 percent off today, because Jews need tacky stuff, too.[Rating: 9 out of . . . . Continue Reading »
. . . did not go to the beach. Instead, I googled the phrase religious beach, and here are some of the things the search turned up: Dollar-Stretching Luau Deals like this inflatable beach ball. They didn’t have a picture of the un-inflatable kind. Information regarding religious beaches in Tel . . . . Continue Reading »
Early in April, with the publication of the May issue of First Things, I stepped out from behind the pseudonym Spengler to begin arguing my more considered ideas under my own name. The experience has been an interesting one: constricting in some ways and yet freeing in others. My Spengler columns actually began as a joke. In 1997 the Asia Times asked me to write a humor column, and the name Spengler seemed a funny touch: the author of The Decline of the West as a comic writer for an Asian daily. The print edition of the newspaper soon went under, but I revived the persona for the online-only edition in 1999. Contrary to my expectations, it won an audience and became a vehicle for more than I had originally imagined it would be. Continue Reading »
Since my Esteemed Colleague mentions that we are an equal-opportunity religious-goods . . . uh, discussion forum? . . . this seems like a good time to unveil something I ran across recently: kosher makeup, from ShainDee.I can’t actually remember how I ran across this. Makeup is not the kind of . . . . Continue Reading »
It would be named Oy Toys, wouldn’t it? Lest anyone think we seek out only Christian tastelessness here at Icons and Curiosities, behold, I bring you:The Basketball Menorah Wood Craft! Sports fans will love will love it, Oy Toys tells us. “Watch as the children transform nine raw wood . . . . Continue Reading »
Iwould like to have an answer. . . . If someone will be good enough to provide the answer I will gladly take his change of garments to the bathhouse for him.” The bit about the change of garments and the bathhouse is talmudic phraseology from tractate Eruvin (27b), indicating a matter . . . . Continue Reading »
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